


Say Something

by lady_mab



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-25
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-17 01:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1368706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_mab/pseuds/lady_mab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you<br/>Anywhere I would've followed you<br/>Say something, I'm giving up on you</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say Something

Looking back, he considers the moment where he made the most vital mistake. The moment where she asks him that, no matter what happens, he won’t allow her to be taken by the Songbird.

 _It won’t come to that,_ he had told her. It was sidestepping her request, one of the few she ever made of him. He remembers the ferocity of her gaze, of the way that her tiny little hands still managed to dwarf his. He remembers, with painful clarity, the way his hand involuntarily tightened around her neck, when just before he had been so prepared to brush his fingers through her hair -- press his palm flush against her cheek.

Her eyes hardened, the way his did. His fingers gripped, ready to strangle the air from lungs. And she dared him to, because she wouldn’t beg. She told him what she wanted from him, because he denied her Paris, there was no way he could deny her complete freedom, right?

He was never meant for gentle caresses. His hands too rough, his blood too dirty. He corrupts everything he touches -- just like he corrupted Elizabeth.

 _Tell me something, Mister DeWitt._ (He’s realized lately that the mocking voice he uses to reprimand himself sounds a lot like Comstock. It fuels his hate for not only himself, but for the hypocrite as well.) _Which of us is the demon here? The man who kept the girl in blissful ignorance, dreaming of a time when everything will be like in the books that she’s read -- or the man who rips her from her dream and exposes her to the harsh reality, to the gunfire and betrayal of humanity?_

It’s not his choice. It took him a long time to realize that, and it only came crashing down as he stood there with his hand around her neck, hoping that the moment never came when it had to return. He only thought it was his choice, that he had any sort of sway in the matter.

_Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt._

That wasn’t even a choice, though he told himself time and again he could stop whenever he wanted to.

* * *

She has a split second to make her choice -- not that there is any choice to make. His gun is nowhere near, but even if she wanted to turn the barrel on her own head, she knew it wouldn’t stop the Songbird from killing him.

So the only path is clear: Sacrifice herself to save the man who has been trying so hard to save himself. A part of her knows that it will only be another nail in the cross he’s learned to bear. But he no longer has to worry about her weighing him down.

The leather and steel claws curl around her and for a brief moment, before everything is jerked away, she feels the cold, stifling jolt of fear tearing its way up her throat.

Their eyes meet, and she reaches for his hand. _I don’t want this_ , she thinks, reading the apology already on his lips. _I change my mind_.

The Songbird pushes off the crumbling floor, and he scrambles to his feet (soldiering on, despite the way he was just flung through a window). She hears the way he cries her name, _Elizabeth!_ , and she wonders if he can hear her, wonders if he can interpret the sob that falls from her mouth.

“Booker!”

_Save me!_

* * *

Each time he passes one of the rips in the fabric of reality, the static making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, the improbability of it making his stomach roil, he can hear her voice. The broken sobs and terrified shrieks that taunt him through the house.

If only he had been faster. If only he hadn’t let his own selfishness overwhelm him. He might have made it to her on time. He might have been able to uphold his end of the bargain, the promise he didn’t want to make her because it would mean breaking the one he made with himself.

A debt only means so much if you care about the consequence.

So he soldiers on.

That is the one thing he’s good for.

* * *

Six months was all it took.

Looking back, she wonders if that should be considered a miracle or not. If she couldn’t hold out longer, if she should have just caved and admitted defeat earlier.

She took the Songbird’s hand and, with that, she relieved him of any burden to pursue her. He was an inherently selfish man. Lying about Paris wasn’t the first, and it wasn’t the last time he lied to her.

She knew, even then, that he avoided making the promise to kill her if it should come down to it.

All during the torture, the indoctrination, the way that her false father shoved his philosophy down her throat and under her skin -- a small part of her clung to the idea that he didn’t make the promise because he was telling the truth for once.

_I will stop him._

And she told him _no, you will end me_.

This is what she gets, she figures. She tried to force him to agree to do the one thing he would never want to do, and that was to hurt her.

In that case, six months is a very long time for a broken heart to hold onto the hope that it didn’t mess up too badly.

There’s only so long that hope, stretched thin and worn down, can hold up before truth rears an ugly sword to pierce her through.

He wasn’t going to come.

* * *

_It’s been six months_ , the tear tells him. He wonders if he missed something, that when he was knocked out on the roof, he had slipped into a concussion. Rip Van Winkle, waking up from a slumber thinking nothing is wrong -- only to find that time had slipped between his fingers.

Time is a funny thing. He knows this. Halfway across the bridge the snowing starts. And he finds the tear from the past, from the world he left behind.

 _It’s been six months,_ the unfamiliar voice says, and behind it, he knows the words _he’s not coming_ are left unspoken.

So how long has it really been? How far did he slip, how long was she left on her own?

Her eyes are dead and lifeless when he finds her again, an old woman’s image projected on the wall. Her face is lined with wrinkles and hollowed with age. But he knows its her, his Elizabeth, the one he lost hold of.

_He abandoned me to serve his own needs._

(I didn’t, I’m here now, Elizabeth, I’m trying to find you now.)

_I followed a man who seemed to be everything my father was not. That man was a false shepherd. And when the wolves came for me, he was nowhere to be found._

(I’m here now, but you are the one that can’t be found.)

The mark on the back of his hand burns, his brand, his hairshirt -- the constant reminder of something he can’t remember.

_There is still one last chance at redemption... for both of us._

(When I find you, I hope that you’ll forgive me.)

* * *

_No, no no no no! Please, I just want this to end. Please._

_I just want this to end._

_Please._

* * *

“Time rots everything, Booker, even hope.”

“I was coming.” He hates the way his voice breaks when hers doesn’t -- the way she’s turned to iron and hollowed out shells when he wasn’t there to protect her.

“Songbird always stops you.”

“Yes, but I would have found a way--”

“No. It’s too late for me. I brought you here for your sake -- yours and hers.”

There’s still a chance, he realizes, as the old woman hands him the card. This is just a potential reality, one of the many futures that can still be avoided.

He finds hope when she has none left.

He blinks and finds himself in a sunlight hall. He breathes, and settles back into his skin.

There’s still time.

When she screams, it’s in the here and now and not stretched through time.

He runs.

* * *

She doesn’t remember much -- a lot of pain, words she can’t comprehend, and doors opening. Hundreds upon thousands of doors opening in her mind, at the touch of her fingers.

She remembers screaming and begging and wishing it will all just end.

She lost track of how many times she sobbed his name, _Booker, Booker please, I need you here_.

The next thing she remembers are his hands, warm and reassuring. “I’ve got you,” he says, as calloused fingers grip her shoulder.

Its not the same grip that she forced around her neck. His hands tremble as he eases her up, frees her from the machine.

She knows what he’s seen, because she’s seen it too. That possible future, the one where he didn’t make it to her in time.

She allows herself to linger for longer than necessary as he tightens the laces at the back of her corset. There was a time, probably still is, through ones of those hundreds of doors, where she would have savored the touch of his hands against her skin.

“She’s given us a way past the Songbird, and find and airship and we’ll leave--”

“Booker--”

“--for Paris. _Elizabeth_. Remember, you wanted to--”

“We’re not leaving.”

They can’t. She’s seen that, too, the possible future of them in Paris.

There’s only so long before the truth catches up with them, only so far they can run.

She hates the way his voice breaks, because her heart makes the exact same sound.

* * *

When he says _I’m not going to let you kill him_ , he means every single word. _I’m going to do it for you._

It’s a promise he’s going to keep, even if the look she gives him means she doesn’t believe it.

_Don’t give up on me yet, Elizabeth._

* * *

She never tells him _thank you_ for coming to save her.


End file.
